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Monday, April 11, 2011

I have no shame in admitting that, when I was in high school, I paid little to no attention in my math classes. On the day of tests, I'd use the entire amount of time allotted to teach myself shortcuts to solving the problems. I actually got plenty of A's doing this, but I don't want you to think I'm Good Will Hunting or anything- I got just as many bad grades, too. It also caused an uncountable amount of fights between my teachers and I, because they didn't want to give me credit even though I was getting the right answers.

Is there a point to my story? Many times, no- but I promise there is to this one. The Frogs, like me, continue to get the right answers most of the time- as illustrated by another series win over New Mexico this weekend. But now that I've grown up (a little bit), I can see why my teachers worried so much- they didn't think I was preparing myself for my future, and now I am concerned that this team isn't preparing itself for it's postseason future. A 10-5 loss to New Mexico by itslef is not really a big deal, but these "not a big deal" losses have started to accumulate a bit too much on this squad. And that loss included an abysmal outing by the previously-dependable Stefan Crichton, providing another question mark for TCU's pitching depth.

Of course, I hope I'm wrong- and I very well may be. After all, the endless hours I spent playing bowling or whatever that drug-dealing game was on my (school-issued) TI-83 instead of paying attention hasn't had any negative effect on me- the only math I use in my job involves only numbers- never any letters and sure as shit not any greek symbols or whatever else advanced "math" is using these days. Perhaps they are just bored and are playing to their competition, and the starting pitching is good enough to beat anyone once Regionals start.

One positive sign to take out of the weekend is that Jason Coats is now batting .278- that certainly doesn't make him Ichiro, but that number has been steadily rising the last few weeks and Coats is now second on the team in both home runs and RBIs. He had a double and a homer amongst his 4 hits in 11 at-bats this weekend, and he also walked three times- meaning he had an on-base percentage of .500 for the series. He also drove in 4 runs and stole a base. Josh Elander also continued his recent success at the plate, going 7-for-13 on the weekend with 4 RBIs to match his elder teammate.

Another positive was Steven Maxwell tossing his first career complete game on Sunday afternoon. With the overall shakiness of the bullpen, this team will need it's starters to work long innings in the postseason- and they now have three starters that have shown they can go the distance. I think Crichton's bad showing was just a temporary setback and I was encouraged by the first we saw from Nick Frey, but still- great job, Max.

The Frogs are now done with their season-long, 13-game homestand and David Peterson of HornedFrogSports.com is more impressed with their 10-3 mark in those games than I am. He knows this team and baseball in general better than I do, so take all of my pessimism with a grain of salt. If you're tired of watching this team try not to lose to inferior opponents, you'll like the next game: an ultra-important road test against the Sooners up in Norman tomorrow night.